David Kemp obituary
Artist who built up an imaginative and playful picture of the world using the detritus of defunct industrial plants
In 1981 the artist David Kemp went to live in Cornwall, settling in the village of Botallack, on a rugged, far-western clifftop, capped by a clutter of ruined tin mines. He adapted an old building to use as a workshop, and began painting old furniture with crazy, surrealistic scenes of temples, sea views, beasts and breasts.
Although this sold well, he became increasingly interested in the rubbish he found lying around. The old mine had been used by all and sundry as a tip. There were, he quipped, “more fridges here than foxes”. Kemp, who has died aged 80, was soon creating art out of junk, fantastic beasts and mystic beings, and began to imagine he had stumbled across the detritus of a long-lost prehistoric cult.
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